How does a board review itself?
It’s helpful for a board to review itself annually, either through questionnaires or individual interviews. The latter can be done by the chair (who themselves should be interviewed by another board member) or by pairings of board members, asking each other a set of questions. Senior staff should also be involved in the process.
By way of example, the former chair of LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre) Bernard Donoghue OBE prepared the following list of questions for individual interviews with his board members:
- What do you like about LIFT and being a board member of LIFT?
- What don’t you like or frustrates you about LIFT?
- Are we asking you to help and contribute in the right way?
- Are there issues you’ve wanted to raise or questions you’ve wanted to ask but a board meeting wasn’t the right place?
- What do you think I could be doing better or differently as chair?
Sample questionnaires for board review can be downloaded here.
